Trying something new here, going to do a breakdown of Dota 2’s ESL One Katowice as the Major is starting shortly.

This is a $1 million prize pool LAN run out of Katowice, Poland.

There are 16 teams which start in a double-elimination group stage. This will run from Feb 20-23 – teams must finish top 3 in their group to advance to the playoffs.

Playoffs run from Feb 23-25 and are single elimination. The first stage of groups are Bo1s, all other series in groups and playoffs are Bo3, except for the grand finals which will be a Bo5 series. If you finish top in your group, then you advance directly to the semi-finals in the playoffs.

Our model rates Team Liquid as the strongest team in the field, but there are many strong teams here capable of winning the tournament.

Group A

Lets have a look at group A – keep in mind that only three teams are going to make it out of this group. In this group our model rates Team Secret, Newbee, LGD, and Evil Geniuses the strongest. We see Newbee on their own in the bottom half of the bracket, which could give them a relatively easy path to qualify for the playoffs.

With Secret, LGD, and EG all in the top half of the bracket, we’d guess that Secret will find a way through, and likely the winner of LGD / EG in their first series will be the third qualifier.

Group B

In group B we rate Team Liquid and OG as the decisive #1 and #2 teams. Virtus Pro, Mineski, Complexity, and Vici Gaming are all similarly rated.

It seems likely that Liquid and OG will both qualify, but assuming they both win their first series, they will face each other in round two, so one of them will have to do it from the loser’s bracket. Virtus Pro seems to have the easiest path in the bottom half of the bracket, so they are fairly likely to qualify for the playoffs.

Futures Bets

Taking a look at the Winner market (on Pinnacle) we feel most strongly that there is value on Newbee at these odds – they have a decent shot to finish first in their group, giving them a decent advantage in the playoffs.

We’re going with a small bet on OG as well as we have them highly rated, but are concerned about them having to face Team Liquid relatively early.

Hero Futures

Let’s take a look at hero pick/ban percentages among highly rated teams since the last relevant patch to see if there is any value on hero futures – I have 387 maps worth of data.

Pinnacle offers a variety of head-to-head combined pick & ban futures – the hero with highest combined picks and bans through the tournament will win the bet.

Using my stats here and accounting for the odds I’m seeing, I’ve decided to go with the following futures bets –

1u Sand King (60%) > Bane (44%) @ 1.709

1u Terrorblade (56%) > Clockwerk (39%) @ 1.98

0.5u Outworld Devourer (54%) > Enchantress (43%) @ 1.909

Round 1 Forecasts and Bets

Just using our model to place value bets for the first round of matches, we’re seeing value as follows –

0.5u Complexity over Mineski @ 2.389

0.3u EG over LGD @ 2.35

0.3u Fnatic over Na’Vi @ 1.729

0.5u Optic over Virtus Pro @ 4.12

Tail any bets above at your own risk.

Let me know what you think of this write up, and if you’d like to see more like this in the future.

Feel free to swing by our Discord if you want to chat with other fans or discuss betting opportunities. Enjoy the tournament!

There is an alpha version of the eSports Forecaster now available! Please go to the download page to get the latest version.

Be aware that the program is in alpha development and may have bugs. Your feedback and patience is appreciated. Please join our discord channel to provide feedback, bug reports, and roster updates quickly.

I’m working to very shortly make a new alpha version available. Should be within a couple of days. If you have reached out to me in the past, I should already have your contact info, so expect an email from me within a few days.

The model will no longer be available for free download starting Sep 29. I’ve decided to close access to the model for several reasons, which I will explain.

I’m not getting any signups through the affiliate ads, so the ‘free business model’ has failed. This gives me pretty little incentive to provide the model for free.

My main income right now comes from profitable esports betting. I’m starting to see lines move more quickly, and it feels like I am betting against my own model at times. I feel that having my model in other bettors’ hands is starting to affect my own profitability.

Some bookmakers are bad at opening Dota 2 lines, and since this is how I make money right now, I don’t want to put a tool like this into their hands for free.

I will be pursuing other ideas for monetizing the model, but will be closing access to the model in the meantime. The program will stop working on Sep 29, 2016.

Thank you for your support and I hope that you were able to make some profit using this model while it was available. I will still have a need for alpha testers, please contact me directly via email (m3shea@gmail.com) if you are interested.

I will continue to post model forecasts from time to time on the /r/dota2betting subreddit. Hope to see you there (please comment and upvote)!